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Small animal disease surveillance

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Register for our SmART Comms system (Small Animal Risks and Threats Communications)

The SmART Comms system is a communication tool for the timely notification of potential risks and threats in the small animal sector.  Its aim is to keep veterinary professionals informed with prompt pet-related disease and health notifications. These notification will be relevant and can be used to inform small animal veterinary practice decisions. This system is independent of existing notifiable disease alert systems.

By registering to receive SmART Comms you can decide how you wish to receive these notifications. Messages can be received via email, text message or both. If you wish to register to receive these notifications, then please email siu@apha.gov.uk with the email address you would like to register and/or the mobile telephone number if you wish to receive text alerts.

Small Animal Expert Group Veterinary Lead

Gillian Diesel SAEG lead

The Small Animal Expert Group (SAEG) veterinary lead is Elizabeth Bruno-McClung (07823 537373).
The SAEG was first established in early 2022, with the first meeting of the group held in January.


The shared environment and closeness families have with their pets means that diseases of these species are not only animal health and welfare issues, but also potential public health risks.

The SAEG works collaboratively to gather, analyse, and share information on small animal health surveillance. Potential threats in all pets are covered, including exotics.

SAEG members

To support the SAEG veterinary lead, the group has representation from within APHA, including the One Health Team and the Surveillance, Epidemiology and Data Analysis team.

SAEG non-APHA members include representatives from:

Small animal surveillance

The routine use of computer systems to record clinical records during small animal consultations provides an opportunity to rapidly collect and collate large volumes of clinical records for disease surveillance.

The Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) is a project based at the University of Liverpool that collects clinical records in real-time from participating veterinary practices and collects diagnostic test results from commercial veterinary diagnostic laboratories.

VetCompass, an epidemiological and surveillance programme at the Royal Veterinary College, London, collaborates with over 30% of UK veterinary clinics to share and explore anonymised clinical records across small animal, equine and farm animal species for research that extends the evidence base supporting improved animal health and welfare.

The data collated by both projects is being used for surveillance and research and both groups are represented on the SAEG. 

Surveillance for exotic worms and worm like parasites

APHA will carry out free of charge, morphological identification of suspected cases of Thelazia callipaeda, Dirofilaria repens and Linguatula serrata seen in practice.

APHA and ESCCAP UK & Ireland are collaborating to encourage diagnosis and reporting of these parasites and to map the distribution of cases being recorded in the UK. This will help to inform their distribution and prevalence in UK dogs, as well as helping to identify where autochthonous transmission may be occurring.

Instructions for submission and the accompanying questionnaire can be found at http://apha.defra.gov.uk/documents/surveillance/forms/form-surveillance-for-exotic-worms.pdf.

Disease Information

For information relating to Brucella canis, please go to Disease Information and select the documents for Brucella canis.